Daily News

Spain — Unemployment expected to reach 20% by the end of Q1 2010

12 March 2010

The latest Labour Market Monitor published by the Association of Large Temporary Employment Agencies (Agett) estimates that by the end of the first quarter of 2010 unemployment in Spain will have reached 20% or 4.5 million individuals, almost half a million more than in Q1 2009.

Long-term unemployment (unemployed for more than one year) is forecast to continue to grow until the second quarter of 2011. By the end of 2010 long-term unemployment is expected to amount to 43% of total unemployment.

Since the third quarter of 2007 unemployment has risen by 1.73 million individuals. Companies are not expected to increase staffing levels until the end of 2010 but only by an estimated 24,000 workers, 44,000 less than at the end of the previous crisis in the 1990s.

Agett President, Francisco Aranda, said "it is absolutely key to improve the efficiency levels of the government's job centres by creating a public-private partnership [with temporary employment agencies] to avoid that unemployment becomes a permanent feature. This type of partnership is already working well in other European countries."

Francisco Aranda has recently been appointed Vice-President of Eurociett, the European Confederation of Private Employment Agencies, in order to enable him to lobby for private-public partnership between the job centres and temporary employment agencies. Aranda also wants temporary employment agencies to be allowed to work in all industry sectors at all Human Resources levels, which is currently not the case in Spain.

To read the full Labour Market Monitor in Spanish Language please click here

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